Re: is x10.com dead?

["E. Lee Dickinson" <lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Bill Kearney" <wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>  It's old, was
> poorly designed, is made with miserably sub-par manufacturing standards
> and
> cannot operate reliably in a modern home.  It's day is done.

4 computers, two LCD tvs, one CRT tv, a pair of touchscreens, and a ton of
cordless phones, all the major household appliances as signal suckers and
noise generators. 6 switchlinks, two inline modules, and a ton of lamp
modules. All my X10 stuff works perfectly.  The only complaint I have is
that I wish there were a lamp module that responded to scenes.

People blast X10 for requiring a phase coupler.. but I mean... $20 for
something that took me 12 seconds to install, incluing unpacking. Not to
mention the fact that insteon wants an RF module on each phase to be
reliable, too.

My house is very modern, technologically speaking. That said, I'm sure my
reliablity  comes from the fact that my house is small, only around 1500f^2,
and the fact that I don't have a huge number of X10 devices installed. Those
of you with larger houses probably have 5 or more TVs, 20 or so switches,
etc.

If I were building a new, high-end, large house with dozens of controlled
switches, there's no way I'd put in X10. But for a retrofit into a small
house where some creative wiring was needed (do any of the other
technologies even have in-line modules yet?!), X10 has been perfect for me.

I made my decision based on the cost of the switches, the amount of
investment I wanted to make in this house, the available devices, and the
proven record. Not a perfect record, but a well-documented and
well-troubleshooted record.  When my projection screen would only lower
while the AC was on, I immediately knew that the compressor was acting as a
phase coupler, so that's what I needed. It's nice to know there are a
thousand websites covering any problems I might have.

I'm having trouble understanding why this debate has become so heated. I
suspect it's because we all have a lot of money and personality invested in
each of our projects. But come on. Obviously X10 is working reliably in
plenty of homes, and is a viable option for some. To each his own.